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Now to make sure they have made all there customers angry they have added that annoying ad/banner in the program guide that now takes up 20 percent of your screen real estate. They have done this even though they tried it before and everyone hated it. They have kept it even though people are complaining loud and clear right now. They claim it helps people learn about features ,as if were too stupid to figure out from there explanation channels. WELL, they wont always have a monopoly. One day the phone companies will be allowed in. When that happens ,believe me, I will remember how i was treated when they thought i didn't have anywhere else to go. Until then i am going to cancel a premium channel in protest until they get rid of that banner so that i can go back to the old way of seeing what is on tv for the day without seeing their ads taking up 20 percent of every screen.

Has anyone out there switched to the Motorola 3412 from their old 6412? I am having freezing and bad hard drive sector(s) issues with my old 6412 w/DVI output. On another site I am getting some poor reviews of the 3412.

I went from a 6412 to a 3412, and from there to a 3416. Stability has continually increased. I think, however, that has more to do with improvements in the firmware (which would be applied to that running on all three boxes, equally), and just luck-of-the-draw with regard to hardware quality. There are evidently a good number of sensitive components in these boxes, and they suffer from both infant mortality (in which cases older boxes would be better) and from wear-out and damage from mishandling (in which cases newer boxes would be better).

Overall, the boxes are far better than some would have you believe. They're not rock-solid, but for the money we're paying (comparing it to the practical alternatives, and how much the alternatives cost/how unreliable the alternatives are) the Motorola DVRs are actually quite good.

I do agree with the painfully slow changing of channels, which leads to painfully annoying bitching from my old lady about "how slow the channels change". And Lord, don't get frustrated at the pace either, if you try to go faster the box locks up and then changes 10 channels for you!

Now to make sure they have made all there customers angry they have added that annoying ad/banner in the program guide that now takes up 20 percent of your screen real estate. They have done this even though they tried it before and everyone hated it. They have kept it even though people are complaining loud and clear right now. They claim it helps people learn about features ,as if were too stupid to figure out from there explanation channels. WELL, they wont always have a monopoly. One day the phone companies will be allowed in. When that happens ,believe me, I will remember how i was treated when they thought i didn't have anywhere else to go. Until then i am going to cancel a premium channel in protest until they get rid of that banner so that i can go back to the old way of seeing what is on tv for the day without seeing their ads taking up 20 percent of every screen.

there are recurrent rumors that Verizon will have their (FIOS?) TV service in my area soon!! A competitor might get Comcast's butt in gear. They installed a digital phone line for us recently. Although both service guys were nice the first guy installed a broken connector which took the second guy coming out about 3hrs to figure out. And these STB-PVRs are ... well not good

Just keep in mind that a small percentage of folks have major problems with the $800 TiVo Series 3. The most troubling problems are random channel loss (you'll turn on your television to watch something you recorded, only to find an hour of black-screen), and partial recordings (the recording ends, sometimes after just one minute).

Believe it or not, this is all very cutting-edge technology, and indeed, some would contend that it simply isn't ready for prime-time yet. The HR10 was a very unique DVR -- reliable, HD, and secureable. They must have gotten incredibly lucky. All other HD DVRs seem to have very troubling limitations.

its not the box, its the software. My cox box has that crappy Passport software on it and the menus are a joke. I suspect when they get Tivo for these boxes it will be a lot better. The box is not bad....the crap software is.

I guess Comcast is NEVER going to address their DVR software taping a dozen episodes (all encore repeats) when you set it to tape ORIGINAL programing only. In my view, the first time and only the first time something is broadcast is it "Original". Surely they could tag encore showings as "encore" or the like, but they obviously don't give a damn.

Is the TIVO any better? If you set it to tape Original Episodes Only, does it still tape all the encore presentations?

Is the TIVO any better? If you set it to tape Original Episodes Only, does it still tape all the encore presentations?

If you set up a Season Pass to only record new episodes, it does so, unless the guide data is messed up - which I've run into on a couple channels, mostly USA and Comedy Central (they're not very good about flagging reairs properly). I had to set up a time-based recording for L&O:CI on USA, after it was moved. However, the majority of shows are flagged properly, and the TiVo will obey that and do what you want.

In my view, the first time and only the first time something is broadcast is it "Original". Surely they could tag encore showings as "encore" or the like, but they obviously don't give a damn.

Uh, Comcast has nothing to do with tagging program guide information. The networks provide that information, tagging their own programs as either "New" or not. Cable networks deliberately tag all broadcast of an episode during its first week of broadcast as "New". That's what they should do, since the only reason to rebroadcast something a dozen times in a week is to be sure that people who missed one offering of it can catch any of the subsequent ones.

What is needed is a feature whereby the DVR remembers which episodes it has recorded over an arbitrary period (say 28 days) and then understand that it shouldn't re-record an episode during that time period, even if it is tagged by the network as "New". Unfortunately, TiVo has a patent on that feature, and it is reserved as a competitive advantage for TiVo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBH

Is the TIVO any better?

See above. This is one of several reasons why people would be willing to pay more for TiVo than for the cable company DVR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBH

If you set it to tape Original Episodes Only, does it still tape all the encore presentations?

Due to its patented feature, TiVo actually has three choices: (1) Record only new episodes (and therefore only one instance of that new episode during a month); (2) Record all episodes (but still only once instance of any specific episode during a month); and (3) Record all episodes (with duplicates).